My progress with my Tech Startup-Jobclipboard

[katly007]

I'm starting this thread to keep track of my progress and journey from where I am now to where I'm going to be. I don't think it's going to be easy and I want to be able to celebrate the little successes along the way to keep momentum and energy up.

I started a website that offers Job Seekers a free tool to keep track of all the companies they've applied to. They can keep track of companies' contact info., date resume was submitted, interview date/time, notes, and whether they want to follow up or not. I think it's a great service and I'm really excited to be able to help millions of frustrated, discouraged, and unemployed people.

I actually feel that this is a mission for me and not just a fastlane road to riches. I've done other projects in the past but it hasn't resonated with me as much and I didn't feel like I would be able to help a lot of people with it so I've usually given up. But for some reason, being able to help all these people that are so down and sad...even if I failed and didn't make any money and it was useful to them, I'd still feel my efforts/time/money spent would be worth it. That's what makes me keep going with this project.

The website went live in August. So far only 4 subscribers. But that's because the verbiage wasn't converting and it was in PHP and I only know basic html and couldn't change it. I had spent a lot on Elance contractors already and I want to conserve the cash that I have to live on for the next few months as I get this thing off the ground.

I stumbled onto the Startup Weekend event by accident when I got discouraged. I went to the event and met a programmer that said he would help me. He's helping me with the immediate/minor changes on my list for free. I met a mentor who's keeping in contact with me through email and giving me pointers/advice/suggestions on what I need to do next. He said I listen and follow up with action so I guess that's why he's continuing to offer suggestions to me.

Ex: My mentor suggested to me to go pass out flyers at the Job Fair tomorrow and talk to people. I'm really introverted and I don't like crowds...but I decided that I will talk myself into going and get off my butt. I told him I would do it, so I've already committed myself. I told the programmer I would go to the Job Fair if he finished the minor changes to the homepage so that I can get better conversion.

I feel that having people helping and giving you feedback is so valuable. And finding people that believe in your startup and idea. This morning I was thinking that at the end of the journey, if I could acquire all these relationships and have tons of fun because of all the amazing people I meet along the way that would be worth more to me than a lamborghini (my friend wants one, so maybe I'll give it to him and have him drive me around.)

I sent out the follow up email to the contacts I made at SW and so far I've gotten 5 people that responded. 3 offered to help. I sent it monday morning and it's tuesday afternoon, maybe the other responses will trickle in later this week. Most of the people have jobs and other side projects so I understand if they are busy. But even that little bit of help made me feel better. I'm just surprised that I didn't get responses from 2-3 people that I felt I connected and they said they would help. Hmm...oh well.

www.jobclipboard.com (this is my website/idea)

[PHD]

Congrats on the startup!

I think that your idea is brilliant and wish I had such a resource a year ago when I was applying for copious amounts of jobs. Although I can't comment on the functionality of the website it is looking really good, simple and attractive just how I like it.

[Pat]

How do you plan to make money from it?

And your landing page needs a lot of work. I can't really tell what you offer. Explain what it is, show the benefits etc.

If you are new to advertising, I can highly recommend the book cashvertising.

Cheers
Pat

[911Carrera]

I think this site is a great concept and has the potential to succeed. The landing page is fine, don't change it. It says briefly what the site does, straight the point. Facebook doesn't say what it does on its landing page. People sign up to find out the details. It's a good technique.

Don't worry about money now, just focus on getting users. You have the potential to make good money from advertising once traffic catches on. This startup smells like a winner to me. Good job and keep it up.

[katly007]

Pat,

I know what you mean with the landing page, if you had read the other forum post I wrote regarding the things I've learned and took away from the Startup Weekend...then one of the things I found was a free programmer to volunteer :-P as I can't do anything technical at all. And he is working on it now as I type.

I wrote the "new verbiage for the homepage:

If you send out lots of resumes and go to many interviews you might have a
problem keeping track of all the companies you have applied to. Applying to
the same company twice by mistake is unprofessional and a time waster, as
well as not having ALL the companies' contact information in one place.
With our FREE Job Tracker Tool you will have every company's contact
information, date resumes were sent out, interview date/time, and notes organized and at your fingertips.

I think this should definitely improve conversion rates significantly as I know the prior/current verbiage doesn't really help my conversion. I've sent traffic to it...well, I have 6 subscribers now. Hey, progress. And I'm going to the job fair tomorrow.

And I'm supposed to be a copywriter so slightly ashamed. But as everyone knows, it's not the first try that matters, copywriting involved many updates/tweaks/testing/improving upon conversion. And anyway, the Idian programs said I had to write something and send it to them to get the website up so it was last minute and I didn't even think about conversion, they just needed some words at the time. ARghhh.

But thanks for all the advice/suggestions...keep them coming.

Oh and I just woke up from a nap as I didn't go to bed yet last night, and it's afternoon...so when I woke up and it was so bright I thought I had completely missed the job fair and I was like "oh no...I missed the job fair and I didn't get the flyers printed yet." LOL. So funny, I was panicking, I was like "Uh, my mentor's gonna say I flaked since I was saying how introverted I am and how handing out flyers to a huge job fair crowd wasn't my idea of fun but I told him I was going anyway. And I thought that I had overslept."

Whew...glad to know it's not tomorrow yet.

[trnkyit]

I wrote the "new verbiage for the homepage:

If you send out lots of resumes and go to many interviews you might have a
problem keeping track of all the companies you have applied to. Applying to
the same company twice by mistake is unprofessional and a time waster, as
well as not having ALL the companies' contact information in one place.
With our FREE Job Tracker Tool you will have every company's contact
information, date resumes were sent out, interview date/time, and notes organized and at your fingertips.

That is MUCH better. Earlier, I went to your site, but I really didn't know what you were offering. After reading what you just posted I TOTALLY get it. In fact, when I go back and read what's there now, I understand as well, but the quote above describes your site to a tee! Change it now!

Corey

[katly007]

Thanks!

I wish I was technical, I wish I was technical....alas, I'm not. Good thing I attracted some free talent. I'll have to wine and dine them to make sure they stick around. He's supposedly working on it as we speak. I'll wait a few hours and call him later tonight if I don't hear anything, I don't want to be too naggy, considering it's "free help."

Site is in PHP, I only know basic html.

Wanted to give the link to the other thread of my experience with the Tech Startup Weekend that I just participated in last weekend and how it's spurring forward momentum. So that you guys can read that thread as well, if you're interested in what happened and what took place and how it helped me.

Went to a Tech Startup Weekend, lessons/mistakes/regret from it

[lleone]

Great concept. The landing page is great. Very clean, great colors and a nice overall feel.

Looking forward to hearing how you progress.

[Pat]

PHP only "echoes" out the HTML code, so if you know HTML and have access to the files you can change the text yourself.

But make sure you don't touch anything of the PHP code, make sure you only edit what's inside the quotes or you will make your developer unhappy

[katly007]

I suck at it. I did go to the ftp a few times and I didn't find anything resembling html at all. In fact, I have no idea what's going on with all those weird files so I decided not to touch anything.

So I'll wine and dine and do whatever I have to do to attract and keep my programmers. Also, I have a plan on how to attract an army of them. :-D Even if that plan tanks and I only attract a dozen or a few dozen, wow, I'll really be up and running with unique tools and features that I already wrote down of what I want. Cuz I plan to revolutionalize the entire job search process and procedure as the business/company progresses. The current process is too inefficient, time consuming, slow, demoralizing, and there are way better ways to do it.

That's the idea/plan I'm selling to the developers, to get them on board. It's for a good cause and I really have to do this for the millions of unemployed people.

I really believe that if I can get my entire team built, and get them to see my vision...I can build this into a several hundred million dollar company and be better than all the job search websites and companies out there. They are not innovating or being useful enough.

Later version of Jobclipboard will include tab for "For Employers/HR" with all the tools that help them, as well as the 3rd tab for "Job Board" and the job board will have the latest/freshest job listings and be better than Monster and Careerbuilder. I even have a plan on how to get the Employers to stop having their listings at the other places once I get my 1-2 million users. I don't want to get bought out anymore, I changed my mind, I want to overtake them and dominate the market because they aren't doing a good job and they don't care about the people.

I'm so excited because we actually have do-able action steps for this. There's going to be a lot of presentations and pitches and gathering the right people together to get them to help and have advance movement forward. We really have some good ideas with this project.

[katly007]

I'm so excited because I'm actually moving and not stalled anymore.

Forward movements include:
1) Job Fair tomorrow (media...gotta get a journalist/reporter or someone who can help me interested in the idea/concept or at least be able to follow up with them). I plan to also get an article written about the company/business and my plan in the local newspaper.
2) Thursday, meeting with the BEST lawyer who specializes in forming Tech Startups. It's not just any lawyer off the phone book. This is his specialty and he's won lots of awards and helped many Entrepreneurs so I can't wait to talk to him and get advice and get this going. It took me awhile to track him down. So I'm super happy.
3) Meeting someone who's very talented technically and marketing wise for lunch friday to discuss how he can help me or what needs to be done next. He's a CTO of his own web business and co-founder and he's very smart and talented. Can't wait!
4) Also my mentor and I have an appointment lined up to get a huge organization to help. If this works out, it'll sharp a really good increase in signups and credibility.

So this is a good beginning and if I keep getting off my butt and continue on,....we'll be growing really fast. I just need to have forward momentum every week and increase the speed.

[quattrorings]

Awesome idea! I too wish I would have had this tool back around 2007-2009. Good luck on it!

[77startup]

I love this webapp. I'm not sure if it can make money outright but it seems like the perfect app to get mass adoption. You should def go to colleges and make your app the standard that all students use.

In fact I like it so much I'm going to help you spread it.

[sk24iam]

Nice looking site with a great idea. My only suggestion is adding a link on the homepage that is a Tour, essentially showing how it all works. I see you have screenshots on the bottom but they are so small. Perhaps have them coded to expand when mouse-over.

I look forward to following this thread. How did the elance process go? Do you care to describe the steps that lead to your current product?

[katly007]

I love this webapp. I'm not sure if it can make money outright but it seems like the perfect app to get mass adoption. You should def go to colleges and make your app the standard that all students use.

In fact I like it so much I'm going to help you spread it.

We (I, since there is no co-founder yet, which I believe is really important as I am currently trying to recruit 1-2 Techies) have a lot planned. If I tell you all the features and things I have in mind, you'd be blown away, so will my 2 main competitors. Both of them are way too complex to use. My 2nd competitor got $750k in funding in Dec. 2010 and he has a really cool feature that if I weren't involved in my startup, I'd totally like his. The thing is, I came up with an idea that would be even better than his cool feature and would be more simple. Only problem is I need Techies at this point. That's on my to do list, recruitment of programmers. When I get my army of programmers, we are totally going to dominate the market. I just know it.

And I thank you for your kind words and whatever help you can offer. I'll let you guys know when the new features come out....Can't tell you what it is yet, as that's the trump card I have to beat out my two competitors and I don't want them to find out and code it since they both have a tech team and I don't. But trust me, I'm working on getting the team together ASAP.

[katly007]

Yeah, we're going to make the screenshot open up mouse-over, probably in a day or two. I have a programmer guy who's volunteered to help but he has his own projects and work, and I'm not his main priority which I understand. I have a plan for tech recruitment, worked on the presentation...will let you know how that goes.

We're going to have a company blog, working on getting some media/press, building my team, and just a lot of other things...so I'm going and doing everything as fast as I can. So keep an eye out, it'll get way cooler very soon.

The elance thing was smoother and more frustrating at the same time. I had to draw out everything for them in plan easy to understand charts, diagrams, what the final product looks like and does. I think they are not native english speakers and you can't expect them to read your mind. Also, getting them to make small changes was a pain in the butt, I would say, can you move this line of sentence to the top and they'd move the entire box or misalign everything and I'd have to tell them no, fix that...that's not what I meant.

Today was frustrating because I spent most of the night on making a flyer for the job fair, woke up early to get that mass produced (very expensive at a print shop cuz I didn't have time to go to my parents house and print everything on the printer and have that done cheaply)....and when I got to the fair, they said I had already missed it, it was last week wednesday not today. ARghhhh... so now I have lots of very expensive nice flyers. The guy that told me about the job fair sent me a link to a news station video that said the job fair was tomorrow from 10-3, no date of the event. So it's not entirely his fault, I should have double checked and verified date, I didn't even think of that since there's so much going on and I've been only getting 4-5 hrs sleep.

I really dislike crowds and the whole having to pass out flyers thing and talking to strangers and media etc. So I was trying to pump myself up to do that and funny thing is by the time I got to the job fair I was so excited that I felt I could talk to thousands of people and were looking forward to the experience. I was actually disappointed that it was canceled because I told myself I'd talk to every reporter and tell them what I do. Oh well, next time. But this is huge for me...knowing that I can do this and face down the crowd.